Elder Kent Thompson, India Bengaluru Mission: Festivals, Bandhs, and Missionary Work!

If I could describe this week in one word, it would be chaotic! Ganesh festival, one of the big Hindu holidays has been going on so we had three days where we had to go inside our apartment after 6:00 pm. During Ganesh festival, people get these huge statues of the Hindu God Ganesh and set them up around the city. When evening comes, they all come together to dance, play loud music, bang on drums, and then parade their statue to a body of water where they sink it and leave it there forever. You could imagine how it's not very safe for us to be walking around while that's goes on.

The other thing that's going on here right now is a big conflict between Karnataka (The state I'm in) and the neighboring state of Tamil Nadu. There is a dispute about how they share the water in each state. It hasn't been shared fairly so there is tons of conflict about it. The result is that we had a major bandh on Friday where everybody was told to stay inside all day. During a bandh, all of the businesses and public transportation will shut down. If businesses are found open, the strikers will vandalize their property. If the strikers see any cars or motorcycles with a Tamil Nadu license plate, they will burn them. It's been completely crazy so we've done our best to avoid it. Today there were also some people out on the streets causing problems. While we were walking to the office this morning, we saw some guys pull over a truck from Tamil Nadu and break its windshield.

Because of all of this going on, the week was a little difficult for us. On Friday, we got really bored from sitting in our apartment all day so we went over to the Grundys and played some uno with them. Fortunately, they live in the same complex as us so we were able to get out a little bit and still be safe.

As for our missionary work, we were creative and still found the time to get some good lessons in. We're teaching a sister named Mamatha who is SO pumped about the gospel. She's making great progress and learning how to recieve answers to her prayers. It's so fun to help people learn how great of a blessing the gospel is for them.

Oh and last night we had a really cool experience! We were working in an area where a few less active and part memeber families live. It was getting late but we decided to go and visit Sisters Ammu and Telaka. When we got there, Ammu and her son in law Stephen were really sick with a terrible headache and fever. She still invited us in and we gave both of them a blessing since there is no priesthood holder in their family. After the blessing, Sister Ammu told us that she had been thinking that it would be great if she could have a blessing and then we showed up at her doorstep. She said that she felt quite a bit better right after we gave her a blessing. It was so amazing to see how the Lord can direct us to those that really need our help at that particular time.

Anyway, that's the report from my side this week! Please don't feel worried about me, we are completely safe. It's just ben so crazy in Bangalore and I think it's kind of fun to share about what's going on. Hope you all have a great week and enjoy the luxury of not having all the businesses in the city close down!

Love,

Elder Kent R. Thompson